Cutting it

Hello ladies, Tracie here,

With so many of us enjoying summer holidays at the moment, stash shopping probably isn't a priority, but with so many gorgeous patterned papers out there how can we resist?

As most of the papers these days are double-sided and have such wonderful designs on them why not use them to the max! (great if you're on a budget and with all that money you save you can afford more patterned papers!!)

For my first layout I dived into the gorgeous My Minds Eye, Find your wings and fly range

I cut out all the gorgeous little hot air balloons from the balloon parade paper.

By folding them in half and gluing three of them together I was able to give them a 3D effect

For my second layout I took my inspiration from the brickwork in the photos, I took the bits I'd cut out from the background paper, reversed them and arranged them around the cut out to extend the pattern.

I cut out the cute roses from the My Minds Eye Floral paper and added a few dots of liquid pearls to add interest

My final layout shows my beautiful granddaughter who turned fourteen this year. 

I found the layered ephemera paper was a perfect starting block to build upon and by cutting the repeat 

images from the labelled paper and adding them using foam pads I could add some depth to it, a little bit of washi tape and some chipboard from the same range and I was practically there with minimum effort! 

So that's all from me for now;  for those of you off enjoying sunnier climes, have a wonderful holiday!

 For those of you, like me, staying home and putting up with the rain after all that lovely weather, make your own sunshine and go and do some scrapping! 

Embellishing your Chistmas!

If you're as unorganised as me, it's that time of year when any spare cash is being plunged into (starting!!) your Christmas shopping, and the odd festive scrapbooking treat for yourself may well be pushed to the back burner. With that in mind, I decided this month to choose just a few brand new select seasonal embellishments that I could easily mix in with paper and other bits already in my stash, so as not to break my budget and to help me feel good with a bit of stash busting.

I plumped for the gorgeous Sleigh Ride vellum embellishments from Crate, a star mask and some tin badges from Studio Calico....and then, as you can see from the picture below, ever a slave to my patterned paper addiction, I crumbled when I saw the sweet "Rudolph" paper in the Crate collection!

The first page I made with my goodies records a recent "Santa Jog" my fiance and I took part in for the British Heart Foundation. I started my love-hate relationship with running earlier this year when I embarked on the C25k programme, and although I still can't profess to being able to run 5k yet, I really have developed by running ability more than I thought I ever would and it has helped me to loose 24lbs so far. My commitment to the programme does dip when I find it challenging - so my "darling" other half entered my into the Santa Jog without me knowing as a way to step up training efforts!

Click on the picture for a larger image

I began by using the rear of the Rudolph paper as my base - I loved the geometric tree pattern in pale ice blue. Wanting to get those cute deers in on the action - I popped a slice along the bottom of my page. I love that scrapping in A4 allows me to use a patterned paper as my base sheet and still have some left over - especially when they are gorgeous double sided designs like this.

I layered lots of the vellum tags on top of each other to create an area where my title would go - I loved that their translucent nature allowed the patterns to still subtly show through. The map tag was a must for my running themed page! For my title itself, I used some of the lovely letter stickers from the Echo Park Photo Freedom sticker sheet I used last month (read the blog post here). I created the date using a December sticker from the same sheet, and the one of the vellum numbers that are in the pack from Crate. 

You may notice a little silver star peeping out from behind the photo. I had a go at using the star mask and sweeping some Liquid Pearls through it. It was a little hit and miss; if you pulled the mask of too soon the pearls would pool into a blob, and if you left it on too long, the pearls would pull away with the mask and take a little of the paper with it too. But it was fun to try something a little different. I simply taped the mask into place, squeezed a little Liquid Pearls through each hole, and then swiped over it with an old store card.

 I topped each up as needed until the Liquid Pearls was flush with the top of the mask.

Underneath my picture I popped a row of punched hearts to represent the charity that organised the event. I punched them from some Kraft, but felt they needed something a little extra. So I took a scrap of card, and covered it with some washi tape. I added the strips at an angle as I wanted the striped to be reminiscent of candy canes.

After trimming the rough edge so it would fit, I popped it through the same heart punch.

This gave me a strip of candy-cane striped hearts. I cut a few free from the chain with a small scissorsand added them at random to my original strip of Kraft hearts.

 

The final touch to the page was adding some more of the badges to the corner of the page. I used some of the vellum numbers as decorative frames for them - they were the perfect size for the job!

For my second page, I managed to avoid patterned paper completely - a rare thing for me! I decided to use a piece of the delicious new dark Kraft for my base, and the star mask with some white Mister Hueys to create a background. I absolutely love filling the house with candles at this time of year, and wanted to record some of those little pockets of glowing light.

With this in mind, and looking at the "fading" pattern on the mask, where there is a heavy concentration of stars at the bottom and then fading away towards the top; I decided that I would pivot the mask around a point at the centre of the page, to create a pattern that appeared to be "glowing" right from the middle:

I wasn't too concerned about the overlapping marks you can see in the middle - I had three photos and I knew I was going to put them in a triangle formation (like a Christmas tree!) right in the middle so this would be covered. The important thing for me was to create an effect of the stars radiating towards the four corners.

Similarly, I wasn't worried about the untidy misting at edges where the mask hadn't covered (or the punched "nibble" out of the top left corner!), I always have a border to my pages and knew I could cover this up with that. However, this time, rather than mounting my page onto a sheet of card stock for this, I decided to make a border with some lovely wide washi tape. I created neat mitred edges by folding back the tape as you can see in the picture below, making a firm crease as a cutting guide, and then trimming the excess away with a scissors.

With my base completed, I was ready to start on the pretty bits! Here's my finished page:

 For my title, I altered the "Let it Snow"vellum tag to "Glow" using some of the stickers on the second Echo Park Photo Freedom stickers sheet I used in November. I kept the embellishment simple, allowing the photos and the misted background to be the focal point.

A few dotted pearls and wooden stars added a small, festive finishing touch.

Finally, for a very quick make, I whipped up a tag for a special friend:

I misted a scrap of kraft card using the star mask. The concentrated band of colour at the bottom of the tag was card below the edge of the mask that wasn't covered - I loved the contrast between the block of colour and the star pattern so decided to include it when I cut my tag shape, rather than trim it away. A quick strip of washi tape, a tin badge and wooden stars, and hey presto - a hand made tag in minutes.

 

As mentioned by Jen in her post, we can't at present share direct product links with you like we usually do due to the exciting happenings over at the shop! If you haven't already checked out the brand new and totally revamped website at its temporary address - go now!!!

That just leaves me to wish you a very merry Christmas from me, and a happy New Year!

See you in January 2013 xxx

Making the chop!

When I chat to fellow Scrapbookers, there seems to be one technique above all others that divides us memory makers - hand cutting! It seems we either love it, creating numerous embellishments and details from patterned paper, or simply avoid the "fussy cutting" like the plague!

Personally, it's a technique I love and couldn't survive (scrapbooking wise!) without. When you start thinking about how a piece of paper could be hand cut, a world of possibilities (and endless original embellishments) are suddenly within your reach - patterned paper can be far more than a flat, dimensionless matt for your photos.

This month I decided to work with some gorgeous Authentique papers. They really are fabulous - a very heavy weight, luxurious feeling paper with an appealing, slightly dimpled texture. If you like My Minds Eye, you will love these!

When I clapped eyes on the beautiful Uncommon range, I knew I had to get my hand-cutting mitts on a sheet of Unique....

Sadly as 12x12 is a little small to wallpaper my living room with (!!!)- I excitedly made plans to hand cut those beautiful roses to create some dimensional blooms for my scrapbook.

The main thing that appears to put people off hand cutting is that is is just too fiddly - well that needn't be the case. First of all, the right pair of scissors makes a big difference. A small pair, with sharp, pointed  and slightly curved blades make getting into small spaces easy. They needn't be expensive, I picked mine up from the stationary aisle at the supermarket a few years ago and they have served me ever since:

 

Spring loaded scissors, although more expensive, are also highly recommended and require less effort to create the cutting motion, so are great for tired hands or those with dexterity issues.

I began creating my rose embellishment by cutting one of the large motifs from the paper:

It looks really intricate and fussy doesn't it?! Truth be told - it wasn't! And so here is the most important lesson in hand cutting:

Pick Your Battles!

If something looks too fiddly or complicated or delicate, just leave it off your cutting - just chop it straight off! Who is going to know (or even care) that you did not stick to the detailed image exactly?! So many people are put off hand cutting as they think it is too intricate and time consuming, but you can make it as intricate as you choose.

Here's a shot of the pattern paper intact - the thicker black line is the cutting path I chose; the coloured parts are what I kept, and all the grey areas outside of the black line is what I ignored. Any bits of the design that were too fiddly I simply didn't bother cutting.

Once cut out, I began giving my flowers  bit of dimension. Working on the stems and leaves, I curled them over the blade of my scissors (a bit like you do with curling ribbon) to give them a curved appearance, holding the parts I wanted to remain flat tightly between my fingers so I could get my scissors in closely to the leaves.

Once I was happy with the stems and leaves, I began giving the roses a spot of 3D treatment. The beauty of a repeated pattern like the one on the Unique sheet is that you have several prints of the same image that you can use on top of each other to build depth, almost like decopage. But rather than simply layering up flat images with 3D foam, I took inspiration from the MLS Roll Ups I used last month, and set about creating more realistic floral shapes.

I began by roughly cutting one of the repeated rose shapes from my remaining paper.

Next I cut a rough spiral shape into it (that's twice I've used the word "rough" - see, who's been kidding us all this time that hand cutting had to be a fine art?!) and inked all the edges. This was made easier by gently pulling the spiral apart.

Then, starting from the outside and working inwards, I tightly rolled up my spiral. Squeezing it tightly as you go means it will eventually hold more of a swirling, rosebud-like shape - paper is surprisingly mouldable in ways like this.

I then let it uncurl slightly (or bloom!!) by leaving it on a flat surface.

Finally, I added some adhesive directly to the flat flower part of the hand cut section from earlier:

.....and stuck my curled centre on top. I repeated this process for the other two roses, until my embellishment was complete:

If you scroll back to the first image of the flat hand cut section, you'll see the difference in dimension!!

Here's my the finished article on my page, which uses other papers from the Uncommon range:

Click on any of the pictures to view a larger image

If hand cutting still seems a little daunting, note that I also hand cut doily shapes from the Original pattern paper and layered them together under my photo, and some strips of stamps from the Rare paper which I snipped from the sheet using a pinking shears for a stamp-like edge. It can be that simple!

I embellished my page using some lovely vellum butterflies and jewelled stick pins by Jenni Bowlin.

In the top right corner of my page, more of the butterflies flutter across the Gifted paper background, which I spattered with Pomegranate mist.

I added a few dots of Liquid Pearls as the butterflies flight path, and used them to create a heart frame around the subjects of my photo. To do this, I cut a heart template from ordinary A4 paper, and placed it over my photo,

then simply dotted the Liquid pearls all around the outside edge before carefully removing the paper:

 

Some sparkly Thickers completed the look of my feminine but glitzy page.

I hope that my post has given you a bit of inpsiration to unlock at the potential of your flat patterned papers with a spot of handcutting! It can be simple to do, and is always effective :)

Thank you for stopping by, as always xxx

Roll Up, Roll Up!!

Following CHA, the shop is being flooded with exciting new products - it's hard to choose what to buy first!! But as soon as I saw the new releases in stock from My Little Shoebox, I immediately fell in love with the Roll Up Flower die cut sheets and new they'd be top of my purchase list!

The sheets consist of die cut shapes, which easily roll up to create fabulous flowers, as well as some bonus ultra-trendy cloud and pennant shapes to add to your pages too. There's a sheet for each of the five new lines released at CHA, including the Playtime & Destination lines pictured below, so there's  a colour way to match any project.

I decided to use the beautiful Audrey line to create a page; the feminine colours and bow motifs were a perfect match for an old photo of my Grandmother that I'd received the very same week as my goodies arrived.

The Roll Up die cut flowers couldn't be easier to create:

1. You start by popping your chosen shape out from the sheet and carefully separating the spiral (it's joined together in places by tiny little paper dots).

2. Begin rolling your flower up - starting from the outside working in to the centre. I found that rolling the paper around a cocktail stick helped to get me started and made it easier to hold while rolling it up.

3. As you roll, you should start to see the flower forming as you roll:

4. As you get towards the end, you will see that you are left with a disc shape that can't be rolled - add some adhesive here,

5. Then press your rolled paper onto your adhesive and admire your finished flower!

6. You'll see that the sheet also has some plain die-cut flowers, which can be used on their own or layered together with the Roll Ups to create custom designs, mixing and matching the colours and patterns however you wish:

Here's a selection of flowers I made with the Audrey sheet. When you consider I have half of the die cut sheet still left in the packet it really is excellent value for money at £2.99 - you have lots to play with!

When you begin to think about adding beads, buttons, and bling to the flowers too, the possibilities are endless. The completed flowers are really pretty and add a great deal of dimension to your projects, as you can see here:

I couldn't wait to use the flowers on a page, so together with some of the matching Audrey papers, created this:

Please click on any of the following photos to view a larger image

I chose to use the pretty Funny Face paper as a base for my page, and created clusters at the bottom corners of my photo using the Roll Up flowers, together with cameo faces and bows cut from the My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany's papers.

I used a clear glaze pen to add a glossy shine to the cameos and popped a small adhesive pearl in Bubblegum Pink to them to add more detail:

I handcut a border from the Breakfast at Tiffany's paper to run along the top of my photo, along with some more of the pearls and a pretty little Jenni Bowlin bow embellishment - which not only matched the bow motifs in the papers but I later realised echoed the bows on my Grandmother's pretty silk scarf in the photo - bonus!!

I created my title using Thickers which I popped on to die cut pennants from the Roll Up sheet, and strung them together using some pink Bakers Twine. I added a little pearlescent detail to the Thickers and punched butterflies (and all around the edge of the patterned paper to highlight the artisan-label shape), using Liquid Pearls...another product that is super useful and incredible value for money - it lasts for ages!

Thanks, as always, for stopping by xxx